e-Clippings (Learning As Art)

Lots of Learning 2005 Follow-Up Podcasts

(Hint...That's not me in the picture)

Now, I'm no governor of a large Western state but I have been doing a lot of podcasts lately. We have been trying to extend the impact and community of Learning 2005 by publishing podcasts with most of the facilitators from the conference. These are posted on the front page of the Learning Wiki (which is something else you should be checking out as well).

So..if you've been dying to know what I sound like...and more importantly, want to hear some of our great facilitators talk about their topic, then hop on over.

Clapping Trees on the Rise of the Conference Wiki

(LINK)  I'm going to have to review all the other Wikis listed in this post but just from our recent experience with the Learning 2005 Wiki, I can say that there is a great deal of design work that goes in front of a productive release of a conference wiki and that if you place the technology without the design or the thought of creating the appropriate context, then you leave yourself open to either failing to realize the full potential of the medium or just plain failing.

Learning 2005 Wiki...still burning it up...

...Just a quick note that I just got back into the office this morning and checked the Learning 2005 Wiki and in the 4.5 days since the event ENDED, there have been over 30 additions made to the Wiki. Now someone tell me when the last time a learning event generated that much activity after it ended. I'm not being rhetorical here - I really want to know if anyone has been involved in something that managed to generate post-event heat like that.

Back from Learning Cruise

Whew. Back from the follow-up cruise to Learning 2005! I think I still have my sea legs since I still think that I'm swaying a lot more than usual. We had a good group of folks on the cruise and the cruise itself was pretty cool..first time for me and no sea-sickness (Bless that Dramamine).  Anyway...more on that later...

I did want to let everyone know that you can still visit the Learning 2005 Wiki for updates and all the content we're allowed by law to publish. Our plans are to continue to add info and content to this space until about January, when we will start morphing it into a community for Learning 2006. We will post all the content that we have to this space (eventually - we just need a little time to catch up on emails!). We will also be linking to all the content that L5 participants are creating themselves, like podcasts, blogs and wikis. I am excited to get back and get some perspective on everything that went on at L5 - tough to do when you are in the midst of it and honestly - didn't think about it much on the cruise.

Gotta head for the airport now and catch a flight home to Saratoga Springs. Look for more here and on the L5 site in the days and weeks to come.

And don't forget the desktop thing.

More Live Blogging from Learning 2005

Good battery charge this time but I can't the photos from my cell phone into my Google mail, hmmm. Anyway, I'm sitting here in our afternoon general session. Cool that the "learning2005" tag is starting to get some traction on Technorati.

Steve Johnson is about to go up on stage but first Elliott is doing some interesting polls for stage-setting. First result - the audience ranks 47% of themselves as LOW on gaming, next ranks gaming for learning potential as 37% high and 36% medium. Last poll asks "worried about video games" - survey says.....22% as high and 28% as medium, 32% as low. Hmmm. Not a lot of experience with them but people think there is potential even though some are scared if their kids play games.

Steve starts by reminding us that the book is not just about games but kind of started as a generational defense- thought that games were being unfairly trashed. Tells kind of the genesis story for "Everything Bad Is Good For you" - says he was playing Sim City and how you're never quiet in complete control of the game, the art of the game is figuring out the logic of the system. Shows the game to his 7 year old nephew, gave a condescending tour of the graphics of the game, after about 20 minutes he mentions problem with the factories in one area of the game - kid responds with "I think you may need to lower your industrial tax rates." The question is what is going on there.

More later......

Admirals, Emergence and Innovation

I had honor this morning of kind of being VADM Moran's escort around L5. Moran's slightly daunting task is serving as the CLO for the US Navy. No smal task but he seems to tackle it with a wealth of energy. I watched as he made an on-the-spot decision to try to change his incredibly cramped schedule to stay at L5 longer so that he could lead a conversation around the Navy's 5 Vector Model. Impressive if you have any idea how badly jammed up an Admiral's schedule is.

I am also looking forward to hearing Steve Johnson talk in this afternoon's general session. I also remain jazzed about the feedback coming from this first day of sessions. There are some great conversations happening and the cool thing is that I can't wait to see what we'll change for next year...truly inspiring to stand inside innovation like this.

Anyway, gotta get back to it...don't forget the deskptop thing.

L5 (low on power - live blogging)

Live from the openning keynote of Learning 2005! This is cool but I'm about out of power so I want to keep this short! Got to spend an amazing 1.5 hours with John Abele of Boston Scientific today...crazy smart guy. More later....

At the conference....

Well, we are already on the ground in Orlando for Learning 2005. The buzzz and energy coming from the things like the Wiki and the social network have clearly infected the staff and we are ready to go! I think one thing that makes a difference here at a genetic level is that we aren't professional conference planners.

Elliott pointed this out last night and it got me thinking. That fact alone makes us look at both the people coming and this time differently. We are planning an event to engage with peers and colleagues - almost the feel of an association. When you have that kind of mindset, you free yourself to not be exactly perfect and to be able to try new things. So this is cool. Disney has added hi-speed 'net access in the Coronado hotel rooms although the convention center is not fully wireless.

Anyway, gotta run - big setup day. I did want to pass along one more set of info...if you are coming to L5 and want to blog about it, please read on (and I am actually getting some photos in for that desktop thing - so don't be shy, send yours now!) If you use either del.icio.us or furl, please add the tag Learning2005 (no spaces) to the pages you mark there and it will allow us to create an easily searchable base of posts. Also if your blog software uses Trackback pings, you can actually ping Technorati with your Learning 2005 post, by adding a trackback to your post. Instructions on how to do this specific to the major blog programs is available here (http://www.technorati.com/developers/ping/).

Finally, if you take and upload any digital pictures and you add them to a service like flickr,
please add the tag Learning2005 (no spaces) to the photos or I have actually created an L5 group on
flickr at http://www.flickr.com/groups/learning2005/ and you could upload your photos there.

Learning 2005 Wiki and Insane Energy

Even if you are not going to Learning 2005 (L5), you must at least go here and check out the Wiki for this event. Yes, I know, I work for the MASIE Center but all that means is that I probably should stay quiet if I don't have anything nice to say. The issue is though that even working on the inside here and having a hand in coming up with some of the stuff we're doing at L5 - I had no idea how it would turn out.

I have been to A LOT of conferences. No, really, I could make a quilt out of my name tags. I will say this - I have NEVER seen ANY conference generate this kind of energy and community before the thing even STARTS!! You know my good friend Jay Cross got me hooked on this idea of taking pictures of the registration area at conferences as a gauge of how well they were doing. Well, I think that is old hat now.

The bar has been raised to taking a snapshot of how many hundreds of people have put their profiles into the event's social networking system or how high the traffic is on the event's wiki (not just readers but facilitators updating session data and attedees asking questions). Or how many podcasts or videos have ben released prior to the event or how big a virtual world has been created for people to play in.

I'm getting psyched about heading down there and I thought by this point I'd just want to be done. Stay tuned for more updates...oh yeah, I'll have to post more on my experience seeing Thomas Barnett present in Second Life and I'm not going to let this desktop picture thing drop either.

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